The Parkland, Florida mass shooter is receiving “stacks of fan mail and love letters” from “crazed girls,” grown women and “even some men,” the Florida Sun-Sentinel reports, and has now received hundreds of dollars in unsolicited contributions to help fund his prison needs.
Even creepier than the mere fact that the shooter is receiving fan mail is, apparently, the letters’ contents. Deputies at the Broward County jail, where the shooter is being held pending trial, report that he receives “cute greeting cards,” “notes of friendship and encouragement,” and plenty of lewd photos.
Some of the letters are part of coordinated letter-writing campaigns, organized on “groupie” Facebook pages dedicated to the shooter, which also sell bracelets and t-shirts members can wear to express their public support.
“I’m 18-years-old. I’m a senior in high school. When I saw your picture on the television, something attracted me to you,” read one of the letters, according to the Sun-Sentinel, which was allowed to view select pieces of the shooter’s mail. “Your eyes are beautiful and the freckles on your face make you so handsome. …I’m really skinny and have 34C sized breasts.”
“There’s piles of letters,” Broward County Public Defender Howard Finkelstein told the paper. “I’ve never seen this many letters to a defendant. Everyone now and then gets a few, but nothing like this.”
The phenomenon, though, is nothing new. According to several news outlets, serial killers routinely receive bags of fan mail. Ted Bundy, for example, received “bags of mail” from obsessed fans. It’s a symptom of a psychological phenomenon, one psychiatrist told the Florida paper — an attraction that stems from the shooter’s exercise of “power” through murder. He added that the shooter could also be a “magnet for women who want to save him.”
The shooter has not seen much of his fan mail, though. Defenders say they’ve kept most of his mail from him because he’s on suicide watch, but also because they reserve the right to censor what he sees. So far, he’s only asked for a Bible, and his lawyers have only read a handful of notes from people offering him prayers for salvation.
